Year-round performance analysis of a photovoltaic panel coupled with phase change material

Phase change material (PCM) is in employed in photovoltaic (PV) system for thermal regulation and efficiency improvement. The hybrid system is named as a PV-PCM system. While progress is achieved in understanding system performance in laboratory and daily simulation, few results are reported in a seasonal and yearly basis, which requires substantial computation time to solve Navier-Stokes equations. In this study, an enhanced conductivity method is applied to simulate the convective effect without solving N-S equations. The model is developed based on 1-D thermal resistance model and validated with experimental data, possessing a good balance between accuracy and simplicity. The model is, therefore, adopted to examine and optimize seasonal and yearly PV-PCM performance. Within five systems simulated, the result suggests that systems perform diversely under different weather conditions. For instance, PV-PCM system with high melting temperature usually performs well in summer while might prevent heat transfer in winter since the PCM cannot be melt in cold days. Finally, the highest year-round improvement in electricity production 2.46% compared to reference PV system, which is lower than the value reported in most studies conducted only on a sunny day or in laboratory in a short time scale. Moreover, the economic analysis indicates that, without a significant improvement in PCM performance or exploiting electricity-and-heat cogeneration, PV-PCM system may not be viable for real application at this stage.